EPA official who faked CIA ties takes the Fifth

The former senior EPA adviser who stole $900,000 from taxpayers while posing as a CIA agent pleaded the Fifth on Tuesday morning — shortly before House members expressed outrage upon learning that he’s still due to get his government pension.

John C. Beale invoked his right not to incriminate himself when facing questioning from the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, just four days after he pleaded guilty to charges that could bring him three years in prison.

“It is the intention of this committee to seek your return,” Issa said, after discussion about whether the committee could offer him assurance that his testimony would not jeopardize his plea bargain.

The hearing then took an even more bizarre turn when investigator Patrick Sullivan noted that Beale eventually filed retirement paperwork, and thus is due his government pension.

Both Republicans and Democrats on the panel called themselves dumbfounded by the news.

“Still month after month the American taxpayers are going to pay” Beale, said Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah). He said he wants to see EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy come before the committee to answer for why she didn’t immediately fire Beale after becoming aware that he was receiving unearned bonuses and had stayed on the payroll even after holding a retirement party.

“What does it take to actually get fired in this federal government?” Chaffetz railed.

EPA Deputy Administrator Bob Perciasepe defended McCarthy, saying she was the one who led to Beale’s many years of deception finally coming to light.

“I think that Administrator McCarthy was suspicious” for a while, Perciasepe said. “We can parse through” who didn’t catch his long-standing fraud, but “she was the first person since 2001” to take any steps to investigate his claims that he was a secret agent.

Issa said the panel intends to work with the U.S. attorney’s office to make sure it can interview Beale about his decades of lies and fraud, including bonuses, lavish travel and a so-called “open-secret” at the agency that Beale was supposedly an agent with the Central Intelligence Agency. He was not, in fact, working for CIA.

“We delayed his hearing until after the plea bargain in order to make the closure of this portion of the investigation for the [Inspector General’s] office,” Issa said.

“I’m hopeful [that] after sentencing we bring him back” after sentencing, “then he’s not in jeopardy,” said panel ranking member Elijah Cummings (D-Md.)

On Friday, Beale pleaded guilty to criminal charges of defrauding the government of nearly $900,000 in unearned pay and other benefits. His lawyer advised that testifying to the committee could put him in jeopardy, since Beale still hasn’t been sentenced.